**I was going to put this in the MMA thread but I felt it might derserve it's own thread. . .

WHERE IS THE FOOTWORK!!!!!

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I have recently become extremely frustrated with a absence of footwork in MMA. It seems as if there has been a regression back to the flat footed stagnant boxing footwork or lack there of rather from the late 1800's, early 1900's. My question is this: Why is the average boxers footwork better than the average MMArtist's? Why have I seen better footwork in high school wrestling? IMHO the average MMArtists should get great footwork from boxing, Muay Thai, and wrestling but when it all gets thrown into the mixing pot we end up with a fighter that moves very little, has their rear heel on the ground and feet perpendicular to eachother; a T-stance if you will. Evidence shows that this type of stance makes for a less mobile fighter and has the potential to cut off major power from the rear side. In MMA we rarly see the foot rotation we do in Muay Thai and boxing. MMArtists have seemed to favor basing both feet and swinging for the fences. Don't get me wrong, there are several fighters in UFC and Pride today that have great footwork, rotation, etc. but the majority don't. What gives? Is it turning into a "jack of all trades, master of none" sport or is it becoming less efficient or unsafe to be as mobile? I thought I should share this before the fights on Saturday in hopes that everyone would acknowledge this and return to this thread with their opinions.

Maybe it has something to do with the fighters having the shoot and take down so prominently on their minds. The striker is worried about defending against the shoot and has his sprawl all set to go. So he doesn't want to be caught in the middle of a footwork pattern or with his feet close together. The grappler is looking for a gap in the striker's defense so he can shoot in suddenly. So he isn't moving around a lot as he stalks his prey.

Maybe it has something to do with the fighters having the shoot and take down so prominently on their minds. The striker is worried about defending against the shoot and has his sprawl all set to go. So he doesn't want to be caught in the middle of a footwork pattern or with his feet close together. The grappler is looking for a gap in the striker's defense so he can shoot in suddenly. So he isn't moving around a lot as he stalks his prey.

Keith

Hey Keith

I see were you are coming from, I do not really agree I do see your point though.

I think alot of it is the fact that the wrestler's, BJJ guy's tend to stay out of striking range and the striker's tend to stay out of shooting range, which is the same range, if you cannot hit the guy with a jab you are to far out to shoot and alot of the wrestler's, BJJ aficionado's tend to stay out of striking range, so they can stand more flat footed.

I have recently been training in BJJ and have seen little on footwork, the main emphasis has been on ground work, I have been studying Historic European Martial art's for about 3-4 year's now and it consist of mainly sword work and wrestling so footwork is something i am very aware of mine is not the best i am always trying to improve it though.

I see alot of our new guy's who in the heat of the moment are so focused on not getting hit they totally forget about there footwork i think in some respect's this is the case in MMA also when you think in the term's of not getting hit(knocked out) you are to defensive and not trying to get into a position to end the fight instead you are just trying to survive the attack in any manner you can good or bad.

I saw little footwork in most of the fights tonight. The most footwork I saw was with Tony DeSouza Vs. Thiago Alves with Thiago having some sound skills. I question the "let's stand here and trade blows" mentality we saw for most of the night. Chuck was the only one I saw who was feinting and trying to bait Tito with his footwork.

honestly, i think the reason WE see the lack of footwork in fighting is because of our training with guro marc. because of the way he shows his fighters create openings in our stickfights and the kali tudo with footwark we see things we think pros should do. i know ''saying'' is easier than doing, but in the fights last night, and most mma fights, footwork is mainly straight forward and backward. even those that circle use that footwork for defense and we hardly ever see someone use footwork to create angles to be offensive. people say they do train this but we don't see it. the closest was when even tanner was doing those drive-by's on phil baroni a couple to few years back. most try to use feints and head movement to try and create an offensive opening but not footwork.

I saw little footwork in most of the fights tonight. The most footwork I saw was with Tony DeSouza Vs. Thiago Alves with Thiago having some sound skills. I question the "let's stand here and trade blows" mentality we saw for most of the night. Check was the only one I saw who was feinting and trying to bait Tito with his footwork.

Thoughts?

Gruhn

I second this to a point, footwork is definately underated, but it is often hard to see and interpret. a person may actually not be appearing to use it cause he has a good idea on range and evasion whether that is head movement or footwork. Many more people are foot aware as things like ladder drills and plyometrics are so mainstream, but the link from the drill to the fight may not transfer over.

on the last UFC- Chuck had a nice display of footwork, effectivelly zoning, and keeping it in standing range when most would have cut the ring which inadvertanly would cause a clinch, he circled really well, i never liked his hand position and feel if he fought the same game with a CROCOP(different weight class) type, he would be in danger from the neck kick cause of low hands and the thigh kick cause of low base. Due to his attributes he is able to get away with the hand position up to this point. Desouza had terrible footwork... especially for a southpaw constantly stepping into the right. Rich Franklin ate TRIG101/diamond. ouch.

i do see what you are saying Ryan. i think a lot of it has to with the the clinch, and danger of getting a single-pick. what we do end up seeing are pieces... just as the sawtooth in it's drill form would not be transferred exactly over to be used combativelly, what we see are pieces of it. I do feel that practitioners of weapons seem to have more footwork awareness and in many cases training drills for combat. DBMA does have great footwork stuff that i feel can move into mma stuff and drills. i was actually trying to work on an mma type sawtooth. if anyone's got ideas i'd love to hear it.

on a side note i just showed my good friend TRIG101 who has been training mma and various ma for 10plus years and he was impressed enough to put it in his game. This friend lives in LV so is around and trains with guys who are in the ufc or coach fighters in the ufc.... it seems many may not be aware of such techniques. I tried to explain some other weapons concepts that i could interpret into mma with him, but i think i lost him there. I was trying to explain the Illustrimo crosstep, to defend a leg kick, or a single... he politely acknowledged it could work. I also covered a gunting, but i think he interpretted it only exactly how i showed it, not conceptually in that destroy his limb to pass. On that i also mentioned wrist control, instead of taking the arm drag or duck under combo, go for the bicep smash, then do something like a russian belly swipe to pass his arm and you have his back or atleast half a man. Another tactic i was speculating over on limb destruction would be if you're up and he's down doing open guard, instead of a toreando(sp?) walk around pass, while you have one ankle smash that lower limb with a horizontal type elbow hitting either his ankle or calf/bone(of course depending on rules).

hope to hear responses on footwork as well as using more weapons based theories in mma or unarmed self defense.

i was actually trying to work on an mma type sawtooth. if anyone's got ideas i'd love to hear it.

I find the footwork from DBMA transfers rather flawlessly into MMA. I have made little changes if any and many of my EH fighters have used it successfully.

AA uses the sawtooth to transfer to the outside tooth regularly. We saw this A TON when he fought Tim Silvia and a little last night. In regards to boxing having better footwork thatn MMA: I have yet to see any really good boxers enter the cage and in my opinion given the direction the sport is going right now; teach some noteworthy boxers a good sprawl and I am pretty confident that they would do fairly well in the UFC.

One thing in my mind that has always bothered me is to watch allot of good wrestler's who enter the cage and they take up BJJ for submission's and lose allot of the wrestling footwork/movement and philosophy of control when in the clich or on the ground.

Unless we see more money paid out to fighter's i doubt we will ever see any really compatent boxer's(professional) in the cage, the potential payday is just not the same as in professional boxing.

IMHO many boxers have outstanding footwork for their sport, but that does not necessarily make boxing footwork the ideal for MMA. I thought Hugh Jardine demonstrated some outstanding footwork in his fight with Forrest Griffin-- indeed in my opinion it explained everything. I will expound further on the DBMA Association forum.

A footwork detractor may also be the fighting and training surfaces. Most boxers and kickboxers train on carpet, concrete and finally, a stretched-canvas ring. Training on a hard surface develops the stretch reflex necessary for quicker movement. The cushier surfaces kills that development and execution as well as providing a less stable surface. I remember how much my feet/ankles wobbled at my first Gathering at the RAW gym with its extra cushy black mats, as most of my training had been on a concrete floor in sneakers or on a wooden floor (Kenpo) in shoeless.

Baltic Dog, You bring up an excellent point that I had not thought of. I personally train on all three, the mat, tile floor and canvas ring. I have always been able to train on all three and respectively, have been able to transfer my abilities to any of the three surfaces. I have always felt very much as home on the R1 mat in the gatherings and felt as if I was able to retain my mobile footwork (moving around on the balls of my feet, angles, etc). I think a neat experiment I may do is take all of my boxers onto the mat to do their rounds and see how they react. If they too experience what you have then I think we have come to a very valid conclusion. This does however bring me to my next thought:

Do a lot of these new (recent up and comers who have singular previous backgrounds) UFC/MMA fighters fight and train on one surface or multiple surfaces? Anderson Silva being an example he has a great ability on his feet and on the ground, as such he is used to moving on both surfaces and when he gets in the ring or octagon he moves great. I personally am going to have to do some more observing to come to a conclusion on if your thought is a main culprit in the flat footed, straight legged hobble/walk (Chris Leben, Tim Silvia, etc.) we see in so many UFC fighters recently. I hope more people will chime in to this thread and add to this theory as I am deeply intrigued.

i think GSP shows great mobility and footwork during his fights. i'm not sure if the lack of footwork among some folk is a trend. i think there is a group of fighters, leben, robbie lawler, that want to show how tough they are by walking across the ring and trading punches. they're tough guys and rely on it to the detriment of footwork and mobility. or they might just not have trained good striking footwork because of their background. i think during one of deigo's fights in TUF1 you can hear his corner saying "circle" then "...circle the other way"

I do the bulk of my training on the wreslting and judo mats at R1. I think this allows me to go much harder and explosively than would otherwise be the case because of less strain on my joints. I think it also helps me that I do The Dune in Manhattan Beach barefoot. I think this really helps the muscles of the feet..

Was reading this article on Manny Pacquiao, and liked this note on footwork from Freddie Roach...

"Everyone thinks he wins because of his hand speed, but it's his foot speed," Roach said. "You have to make both feet work together. His hands and feet are in balance, and that's the difference between him and so many others. It started coming together before the Diaz fight [in June 2008]. We work on patterns, drills, and by the fight most people don't know what's up. He's at the point now where it's all just about reactions, no thinking."

I thought people wre reffering to the footwork they were seeing in the ring or octogon. Given the limited space of both, part of the reason that you do not see the Fangs and Gums may be because of the space limitations. The gyms and parks that I see the Gathering Matches using have 4 to 8 times the space........

I do agree that there is too much in and out movement, no angles or laterals, in a lot of cases.

IMHO there are some fighters who use elements of the triangular footwork, e.g. the inside tooth for Dean "the king of mean" Jardine does this with a cross rather often. There also was a fighter (UFC 81?) who REALLY looked to me like he had been watching our Kali Tudo 1-- even Joe Rogan noticed something was "different/unusual" about his footwork and how he was hard to hit. Shogun Rua uses something very much like what we call a Zirconia (see e.g. his KO of Liddell, and against Machida)

I'm not sure if the octagon is as small as most of you seem to think it is, I was told (by someone who has fought in the UFC) that its actually really big, surprisingly large he said.

I mean I can't comment much further than that because I've never been in there, but he compared it to a room in our gym and its a fairly large room, lots of room to move around and fight in.

Also while I've never fought at a gathering either, when I did fight at the Toronto DBMA training camp, I don't feel like I came close to covering the amount of room that is available in the aforementioned "octagon size" room. (Hope thats not too confusing)

With that said, I was more focused on the other guy than how much ground I was covering.

I was in the Octagon when I was a judge at UFC X. I agree, there is plenty of room for good footwork. OTOH the cage at King of the Cage was really quite small. Footwork always applies at any and all ranges, but its relevance can be real brief in tighter ranges-- though no the less important for its brevity.

How about Lyoto Machida, his footwork seems to be pretty darn good! These guys are getting so good, before the other guy knows it he's taking three punches to the noggin and a shin bone to the cranium, lights out!

Lyoto was at RAW when I was there. As best as I can tell, what you are seeing in his footwork (e.g. his fight with Tito) is what I learned from Frank Trigg and shared with Lyotto. Shogun shut this game down by closing off Lyoto's movement to the right. This left him vulnerable to being hunted down by Shogun's right kick.

There is brief footage in a promo video of Lyoto using a cone drill to develop his footwork. good stuff.

I remember watching the fights at the Return to Ramblas a few years ago, I was actually amazed at the amount of ground some of the fights covered while fighters were in engagementwith each other. It was much different than fighting in the RAW gym.

There was a highlight video of one of the Gatherings on the member's site awhile ago (forgot to renew, working on it) showing fights in a fairly small space. Not sure if it was stick or knife, but you can see some great footwork as one fighter moves around repeatedly to avoid being cornered by a larger fighter.

I tired looking for an existing thread to post this question, so hopefully this is the right one.

I got a training/sparring partner that really has no footwork what so ever and need some ideas/drills to help him along. He's a pretty solid guy with huge legs. His game is to lumber in, take shots and use those shots to close. We spar with the Stiff Model sticks off this site,we have them taped up solid with electrical tape, so you'll feel the shots but like I said he'll just take them and close. We do work mainly DBMA stuff and I do have the footwork tape from series 1 along with combining stick and footwork. The problem seems to be in the snake/psychological range. He has no stick movement along with no footwork. He'll just lumber around a little, caveman,get hit,roof,close. Any suggestions to get his stick more fluid/snake like? Along with moving feet? I've tried working the drills from the tape series but you can only do so many male/female triangle drills and those haven't seemed to help, at least not in the outer ranges. I was thinking possibly investing in a roll out ladder and doing footwork in that?

PS. Another friend/training partner who comes from a boxing/kickboxing background compares this guy to 1 of 2 types of boxers. He says you'll have a guy that can dance around, shoot in and out as he pleases because he has good footwork. Then you have another guy who'll just cover up, take and take a lot of punches to get in so he can punch.

Hit him harder with meaner sticks until he becomes motivated to evolve.

LOL Guro Crafty, This is exactly what I mentioned to my training partner last night when I was trying to think of things to help this guy but he thought it may make the man gun shy. But my thinking was exactly what you said. I will do this

I am a bigger fighter than most, and my footwork is still evolving. That said, I would second what Guro says above. I would also make a point training the footwork from any number of the DVDs that are on the website, including the FW DVD from RCSF series 1 and the Combining Stick and Footwork from series 2. And repeat. And repeat again. Perfect practice makes perfect.

Does he have an athletic background? If so, use the footwork he has developed in his prior experiences help him. I wrestled and played OLine. That footwork has helped me. I would also encourage him to develop a game based on his assets. Size does matter. Trying to make him move like a small man will only serve to frustrate both of you, and probably harm him more than help him.

Some other things that may open him up a bit for footwork and moving his stick are trying

two on one scenarios/sparring or three on one scenrariosthe prison riot drilltarget his hand while sparring or just spar only using the hand(s) as a targetyou spar with a stick and knife which will discourage him from closing, force him to work something other than the close

i can try to think of some other things, i'm sure several people may have ideas. I think the above can help him recognize his gaps, and then return to combining stick and footwork. Or show him some of the fight footage from the DVDs and see if he can emulate one of the fighters.

I was told that the octagon (at least the original from the start of UFC) was designed to be favorable for grapplers (Like the Gracies) and kind of squishy and unstable feeling as a base for strike oriented fighters.

I am a bigger fighter than most, and my footwork is still evolving. That said, I would second what Guro says above. I would also make a point training the footwork from any number of the DVDs that are on the website, including the FW DVD from RCSF series 1 and the Combining Stick and Footwork from series 2. And repeat. And repeat again. Perfect practice makes perfect.

Does he have an athletic background? If so, use the footwork he has developed in his prior experiences help him. I wrestled and played OLine. That footwork has helped me. I would also encourage him to develop a game based on his assets. Size does matter. Trying to make him move like a small man will only serve to frustrate both of you, and probably harm him more than help him.

My 2cents.

The guy used to play hockey and he's done BJJ. When I say big, think rugby player. He's an athletic guy. Also his instructor just gave him his black belt in Arnis/Kali/Escrima after 2 yrs this last Monday so he's familiar with stick. Unfortunately his instructor is the typical stand in medio/corto range and do hubad etc @ half speed while you do cool martial arty things. So he's never really worked the snake range or for that matter- things you can do under real contact in real time. He comes to a sparring group I run where we try out the techniques and I'm trying to help him not just stand there but respect the stick. Right now we're hammering the attacking blocks material but I now wonder if we should shift more to combining stick and footwork since his game is to close. Except his game is to take hits to close.

Some other things that may open him up a bit for footwork and moving his stick are trying

two on one scenarios/sparring or three on one scenrariosthe prison riot drilltarget his hand while sparring or just spar only using the hand(s) as a targetyou spar with a stick and knife which will discourage him from closing, force him to work something other than the close

i can try to think of some other things, i'm sure several people may have ideas. I think the above can help him recognize his gaps, and then return to combining stick and footwork. Or show him some of the fight footage from the DVDs and see if he can emulate one of the fighters.

woof!porn*

These are all great ideas, Thanks! I know I've learned a lot and have tried basing some of my footwork on Top Dogs.

Sonny would play Largo (cane style) with us and tag legs and ass to get us to move. The 'ass shot' though not painful physically was definitely painful to the ego - there's no excuse getting tagged from behind ... especially when you eat a head shot straight after ....Knife in play also a good idea - has to be some incentive not to get hit. Not wanting to get stabbed is a good one

Logged

It will seem difficult at first, but everything is difficult at first. Miyamoto Musashi.

Doing the footwork drills to a metronome or music with a strong, steady beat can help provide an auditory learning aid to help implant the footwork in the mind. Mounting a cheap foam rubber kickball or football on the end of a broom stick can work. One person can quickly move the ball around especially if they are good with their feet, forcing their partner to really work to chase it so they can hit it. And there is always the old trick of tying one or both hands behind someone's back and having them defend themselves.

As far as footwork and the cage: Man, those things are springy. I've never been in the octagon. But I've been in others and fought in them. They're pretty bouncy. I remember thinking that a few seconds before someone began pounding on my skull. Different cage designs are more or less bouncy. And the same design can have different bounce on different days. It depends on the type of wood used and the age of the wood. And all of the ones I've been in or seen up close are pretty big on the inside.

My most interesting footwork experience: Try doing Tai Chi on the deck of a moving cruise ship in rough water that cannot get up onto its stabilizers.